This Thursday, the Department of Education's Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) will convene again to determine the fate of 25 schools the city is trying to close down.

Since the majority of the panel is appointed by Mayor Bloomberg - and has never voted against his will - this decision will be easy for them. The Panel has never heard or been responsive to voices of real students, parents, teachers, and community members who have already spoken out against their failed educational policy, nor will they be interested in the voices of the hundreds that will sign up to speak the night of. To date, no school slated for closure has been spared.

Join us as we use the People's Mic to reclaim our public meeting and block this fatal vote, while demanding accountability from the DOE to provide adequate support that schools and students need to thrive.

32 Comments

Being in Australia,I am amazed at how Corporation America is destroying it`s own citizens. Any semblance of Democracy is long gone. From what is observed overseas it is seen that by allowing the workers unions to be destroyed has given no one protection against the excesses of rampant capitalism. Your own corporations have destroyed your manufacturing base and turned once fair cities into wastelands. Your skilled workforce has been thrown onto the unemployment heap. Now the plutocrats are denying you an education by closing schools in New York. This will happen elsewhere in America by the look of this trend. You have allowed your wages and salaries to be cut to so low an amount,that many who are employed have to receive government help just to exist,That is exist,not live. Yet these perpetrators of profit at all cost keep getting voted in,why? You have allowed the corporations to destroy your workers unions and therefore have no protection against them. Corporate activity is appalling in Australia as well,we are some years behind you in their worst actions,so are starting to grumble loudly,especially in the voting booth. This will continue at the next election as well,as the right wing politicians here are tarred with the same brush as yours.Corporate stooges. It is so sad to see such a great nation reduced so because of greed and criminal financial activity. America may not go as Rome did,defeated by the barbarian hordes. America is being disassembled by rampant capitalism from within. OWS is the only answer. The declaration and the peoples congress are correct. If OWS does not stop these financial fascists then the whole world will be in trouble. The Occupy Movement has spread far and wide but so have the Plutocrats. They now have bankers as leaders in Greece and Italy. So they will be shafted the same way that Ronald Reagan shafted America. No banking system can be run without Governmental control. We live in a society,we vote as a society. That means we have to have Social Democracy. Vote one in then reign in the banks and break up the corporations. Free trade is a lie and the corporations are at war against you and all of us. The media will not help,one of them ,Murdoch,was once one of ours,so we know him. If only some of the philanthropic billionaires speak up. Surely they see how lost this all is. Protest hard and non violently.Ghandi did it,so can we all.

Right.... like all the right-to-work states (mostly the red, Southern, poorest, most ill-educated states) aren't destroying unions? And have you been seeing how the right wing is trying to dismantle unions every change they get?

I certainly agree with you howl that I`m seriously misinformed.The misinformation delivered daily by corporate media requires much trawling to glean facts.If as you say the workers unions in America are not destroyed then how have they let the situation concerning wages,salaries,offshoring of jobs,medical insurance and holiday pay,get so bad that the American Industrial base has been hamstrung.The media here in Australia is reporting Greek Unions as the bad guys for rallying protesters together outside the Greek Parliament.The Kleptocrats hate organized unions,so do corporations{the organized companies of the Kleptocrats}.The way in which the corporate media is reporting the Greek Tragedy is that the unions are bad and the financiers are good.Yes howl I am so seriously misinformed but fortunately I like many have those honest enough about life ready to steer me toward the right path,and this includes you.For without those willing to challenge deeds and comments we would all have remained in the dark ages.This is why Wikileaks s so important,the status quo has been challenged.

Thank you noaneoliberal.The Bill of Rights proposed by Franklin D Roosevelt is surely needed in your Constitution.One thing we do have in Australia is the Fair Work Act,an initiative of the Australian Labour Party who are in power now.This is so disliked by Corporations and Big Business that they lobby constantly against it.Meaning that salaries and condition disputes that cant be settled within the company or corporation,they go before arbitration.This tribunal then gives a result that is fair to both parties.The most recent result of this here was between QUANTAS and its pilots and engineers unions.This also spread to their baggage handlers and ground staff.A result was achieved with QUANTAS staff receiving most of what they asked for.

And the minimum wage in Australia is $24/hour... while in the "good ole' US of A", it's a mere $7 and some change per hour..... fucking pathetic to say the least!!!! And companies aren't required to give any benefits at all.

Right at present SwissMiss 3000 Coal workers are on a week long strike at 6 BHP Billiton/Mitsubishi coalmines.They are not so to speak striking for more money{As they are paid very well}.They are striking for rights and fairness.One is the right of Union representation on the sites.They have this but the Corps want to appoint their own delegates{Ha Ha}We know here in Australia that if we lose our Union protection we will see Wallmart type operations happen here where full time workers need food stamps to exist.The corporations here are trying to Americanize the workforce but the resistance is strong,because we see what they have done to the population in the US by rampant Capitalism.

A high Court ruling just made here in Australia notaneoliberal.has disallowed Rio Tintos claim that it has private workplace agreements with its workers at the Pilbara in Western Australia. The way is clear for collective bargaining with workers and unions,providing the workers stick with the unions. Fools if they dont,but we have a strong union ethic here in Australia for without them we would have stayed serfs to the British Oligarchs and want to be Australian ones. Im a gold prospector and whilst detecting this morning I could not stop thinking why this has to be. I understand the American Dream,I was brought up on mainly American TV as a child,Mickey Mouse Club Show,I love Lucy,Beverly Hillbillies etc. Yet to continue with the dream would make one,one of the one percent. So in looking at it that way I see that this dream is a nightmare in disguise,it means turning the rest of your fellow country into your serfs,creating your own fiefdom. As Ive gotten older,58 in fortnight,my social conscience turns to the world my grandchildren will live in. Would I let them be slaves to the Magnates of a Plutocracy? Not with all my being and my last dying breath. As in America,we in Australia protested hard against the Vietnam War.I was part of the protest. We went further and protested hard against the Apartheid in South Africa,I was part of that and even got arrested by undercover operatives posing as protesters for saying FUCK Apartheid. We all look to OWS as it is the heartbeat of a movement to correct imbalances and injustices of the corrupt Wall Street principal. Plutocrats are afraid of the peoples ability to vote out the wrongs they garnered by corruptly engaging politicians to further their own ends against the wishes of those they were supposed to be representing. Plutocrats a afraid that as a world we may want to live in peace and find better and alternative ways of doing things,especially in power supply{remember Enron?] and alternate fuel. Well lets scare the hell out of them by voting in the changes needed for a better world. Never let the banks ever operate again without Governmental regulation, All power to you notaneoliberal and be at peace.

Closing-failing-schools, charter-schools -- all code words for attacking public education. That 1%er, the billionaire Bloomberg sees no need to spend tax money on the education of the common lot. Behind that pleasant demeanor and those nice suits is something not so nice.

First they will privatize the schools, then the bigger charter schools will buy out the smaller ones until we have a private monopoly on education just like the hospitals were bought out, publishers, news outlets, etc.. Get fired from one, you will never work again.

Wasn't it one of your earliest Presidents who said about a republic~ "No government can continue good but under the control of the people; and . . . . their minds are to be informed by education what is right and what wrong; to be encouraged in habits of virtue and to be deterred from those of vice . . . . These are the inculcations necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure and order of government."
Thomas Jefferson

I knew I had read it before!

So if you want to control people, don't educate them in case they start thinking for themselves.

Remove all lobbyists from Washington, take control of your own US federal reserve from out of the hands of Wall street banks, and never stop protesting until we, the people of the WORLD, are again free!

This is not about money, and they do not claim it is about cutbacks. They say these schools are "low achieving." It is about creating small schools that can be better controlled, and busting the union.

And the lowest performing schools are the ones that receive the least money and that are in the poorest areas where there is the most crime. If those problems got fixed, those schools wouldn't underperform. It's a complete societal problem that needs to be fixed from the top down, starting with our federal government.

yes yes yes EDUCATION is the priority need from life to life. i remember many past lives deprived of education! but we also must change the education system. we want real education. to know the truth not mind control BS. the present school system is basic training in corporate thinking. we want to THINK FOR OURSELVES. not conform to the tyranny of bully heads, parrot curriculum,. the present school system is an age related conveyor factory system. that behaviour pattern is no longer needed or relevant in the real world. we need centres of excellence for each subject and free access for life. we need the gifted to teach their peers in teamwork NOT A CORPORATE SCHOOL ETHOS. we need a real community to be part of: that's what we are!! the present school system creates isolated losers alienated from life turning into dead beat dads through excessive expectations of providing a home and emotional support for uprooted ungrounded women. we need an ethos of working together to create a joyful community with no one terrorising our children with crucifixion BS. we need real joyful gatherings, real belonging for all. not the present tyranny of damning our fellow man for non-belief in BS or the wars of the big lie of religious division. we need education to free our minds and liberate our potential for joy. we need to increase the people's knowledge of this evil tyranny we live under. we need to show concern for our fellow man and bring down this psychopathic regime.

the creation is the 10 dimensions so i am a creationist. but the gospel is a snare to trap men. the INTENT of putting an image of a man nailed to a cross into children's minds is to FRIGHTEN them. the crucified jew is a RACIST ABOMINATION. alcohol is a chemical lobotomy and the communion of the deluded. i am sorry you don't remember your past lives. you wont remember this life either. neither will you remember today when you wake up in the morning. if you ever wake up?! atheism, christianity and islam brutalise mankind with their FALSE ONE LIFE DOGMA. if we believe we only have one life we become totally selfish. every man for himself. eat as much as you can while you have the chance and leave your fellow man to starve. you have been brutalised with the survival of the fittest BS. it is PSYCHOPATHIC to have no concern for others. LIFE IS LIVED BY CHANGING PLACES life after life after life. this is the Sanatana Dharma.

It will be interesting to know what the kids will do with all that free time on their hands. They will soon get bored stiff and get into all kinds of mischief just for the pure fun of it just to kill some time. What a stupid move of the major.